Hello there, fellow bee lovers! New volunteers, Shavon & Caitlin, here to bring you the year in review post. The WSBG would like to take this moment to wish you & yours a happy holiday season. 2016 has brought many gifts, smiles & educational outreach to our community that we would like to dedicate a post just to that!

The WSBG would like to send our sincere gratitude to these groups: Jenny Ho's West Seattle Girl Scout Troop who came late April to plant over 100 plants! The calendulas, sunflowers & marigolds, not only made the garden grounds stunning, but they provided food for our bees. What a gift! One of the scout's mom is a gardener & sprouted all the plants from seed. Amazing! To the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association who sponsored the educational Kids' Field Day at the garden & the PSBA volunteers who not only helped make that event possible, but who continue their pollinator education efforts, we thank you! Special shout out to the High Point Neighborhood Association for sponsoring the West Seattle Bee Festival. And thank you to High Point and the Seattle P-Patch Community Gardening Program for providing the space and support needed for our unique garden to exist! The WSBG is a volunteer run organisation that could not & would not exist without our volunteers. To all our volunteers, for all the various ways you serve the garden & the bees, we thank you!!! Much like the inner workings of a hive, the WSBG couldn't fulfill it's mission statement of providing community educational outreach about the fundamentally imperitive role of bees in our environment without the support of all of you. Thank you so much for being a part of our beautiful garden!

​We saw many special functions at the bee garden this year. In total, 35 field trips were hosted at the WSBG from various schools & community groups in 2016. As mentioned, the West Seattle Bee Festival & PSBA Kids' Day were two special events at the garden. Stay tuned for announcements for festivals in 2017 and be sure to contact us if you are a school or community group interested in a field trip to the garden for 2017. We are happy to be the recipients of a hive grant from the HoneyBee Conservancy. Through this grant we will have access to lesson plans and other educational resources for our upcoming field trips.

Fun bee fact, if you live within a 3 mile radius of the garden, it is likely our bees helped to pollinate your yard & that you helped feed our bees.

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Winter in the PNW may not be beekeeping time, but that hasn't kept Caitlin, Lauren & I away. We have been busy breaking ground & making way for exciting new plans in 2017. We are preparing for the installation of our medicinal herb patch, diversifying our flowers & a bit of renovating the garden soil composition. There will be ways to help support us in the Spring with some fundraising opportunities, so stay tuned!